The sixth two-day edition of the annual Teaching with Technology (TwT) Summit that began on 27 March 2025 continues today. The theme of the event was ‘shaping global perspectives in education: leveraging technology for future-ready learning’. More than 60 individuals made presentations at the summit; 31% of these were MUT staff from both academia and the support division. The summit is attended by delegates from the public and the private higher education sector. The opening presentations by at least three presenters made it clear that technology is the future.
Dr Arno Louw – Senior Specialist: Instructional Design (e-Learning); Manager: Centre for Academic Technologies Laboratory & Design Thinking Hub – University of Johannesburg, emphasized that there were no two ways about technology and the future. Dr Louw, who has been teaching for the past 30 years, said technology was not here to replace human beings, but will replace those teachers who do not want to embrace it. He said technology was an inevitable part of human evolution. Dr Louw said that technology was an extension of the mind and hands. “We have adopted things like smartphones, smart television. No one forced these upon us. A lecturer must adapt to the use of technology. The gen x, y and z grew up with technology. They are wired differently,” he said. Dr Louw said that instead of boring these young minds, lecturers must work with them by using technology when they teach them.
Dr Louw also took part in a discussion panel with two other experts in education, Dr Melvin Govender, Country Manager at Anthology, and Professor Alfred Msomi, MUT’s Acting Dean, Faculty of Applied and Health Sciences. The three experts agreed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was here to stay; all that the education sector needed was to harness it and take advantage of it to advance human development. All the panellists highlighted the major role that AI is already playing in the sector and appealed to all to embrace and take the necessary steps to ensure that they reap its benefits.
Dr Govender said the present era calls for an evolution of education and requires that lecturers be facilitators because the information will be readily available to the students. Professor Msomi said it was imperative to incorporate AI in both the curriculum and the workplaces so that university graduates would acquire the relevant skills and be work-ready when they graduate.